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Mining Efficiency
Mining Efficiency Mining Efficiency When mining in EVE Online you want to try to be as efficient as possible to ensure the highest yield in the least amount of time per cycle. This guide will detail the early mining ships you can pilot and how to mine with them efficiently. Once you have optimized your fitting for the mining barge you will have a good enough understanding and experience in the game to take it from there. In this guide all skill training will be based from a blank character starting with 0 skill points so you may find you already have some or most of the skills either trained or partially trained for some of the fittings. It is also based on a character with an even attribute balance and no implants. All prices will be according to the results of http://evepraisal.com and are correct to December 2015. Please only use the skill plans for each fitted ship as a reference to which skills are required to use that fitting. If you have decided that Mining is the path you would like to take your character down it is best to train for healing ships too, so you can see a skill plan designed to sit you into the Venture, Inquisitor, Barge, Deacon and Exhumer (in that order) here: http://www.eve-skillplan.net/p/11021 or a fast-track to Exhumer here: http://www.eve-skillplan.net/p/11020 The Venture As a corporation we have a pretty standard Venture fitting for all newbro’s which is handed out to them when they join. It can be found under “Frigates” as “Newbro Venture” in Corporation fittings. The Venture is an excellent newbro mining frigate with a built in warp core stabilizer strength of +2, a 100% bonus to Mining and Gas Cloud Harvesting yield, a 5,000㎥ Ore Hold and 10㎥ Drone Hangar. * High Slots: Miner I x2 * Medium Slots: Medium Shield Extender I, 5MN Microwarpdrive I * Low Slot: Warp Core Stabilizer I * Drone Bay: Mining Drone I x2 The extra Warp Core Stabilizer gives added protection for newbros as they get to grips with the game, nullsec and recognizing dangers (ie. when to dock up when a neutral enters local). The skills required to pilot the Venture take 20m 32s to learn and to pilot it with the fitting they take 13h 3m 46s. The entire fitting costs 567,634 ISK. See the skill plan here: http://www.eve-skillplan.net/p/10867 Note: It will take 18d 11h 7m 30s to train for this fitting. Within that time you would be able to pilot a Mining Barge safely, but most of these skills are essential for mining anyway. It costs 7,286,283 ISK. * High Slots: Miner II x2 * Medium Slots: 5MN Microwarpdrive II, Survey Scanner II, Medium Azeotropic Restrained Shield Extender * Low Slot:, Mining Laser Upgrade II * Drone Bay: Mining Drone II x2 See the skill plan here: http://www.eve-skillplan.net/p/10875 Mining Barges There are three mining barges - the Procurer, Covetor and Retriever. Each have their own unique attributes, but you cannot focus on only mining yield, you have to consider the ore hold and hit points of each. I strongly advise using the Procurer, but will detail all three. Mining Yield The Procurer has one turret hardpoint and a role bonus of 150% for strip miner yield. That’s 2 ½ turrets worth of yield. The Covetor has three turret hardpoints with no role bonus. Three turrets worth of yield. The Retriever has two turret hardpoints with a role bonus of 25% for strip miner yield. That’s 2 ½ turrets worth of yield. The Procurer and Retriever have the same yield and the covetor has the most. To optimise the mining yield you can use mining laser upgrades causing the Retriever to overtake the Procurer by a small percentage as it has one more small fitting slot than the Procurer does. Ore Hold The Procurer has an ore hold of 12,000㎥ and a cargo bay of 350㎥. 12,350㎥ of ore per run. The Covetor has an ore hold of 7,000㎥ and a cargo bay of 350㎥. 7,350㎥ of ore per run. The Retriever has an ore hold of 22,000㎥ and a cargo bay of 450㎥. 22,450㎥ of ore per run. It also has a bonus of +5% to the ore hold per Mining Barge skill level. Hit Points The Procurer unfitted has 5,500 Structure Hitpoints, 5,000 Armor Hitpoints and 6,000 Shield Capacity. 16,500 total. The Covetor unfitted has 1,500 Structure Hitpoints, 1,300 Armor Hitpoints and 1,700 Shield Capacity. 4,500 total. The Retriever unfitted has 2,000 Structure Hitpoints, 1,700 Armor Hitpoints and 2,300 Shield Capacity. 6,000 total. Medium fitting slots The Procurer has four medium fitting slots. The Covetor has one medium fitting slot. The Retriever has one medium fitting slot. Medium fitting slots are where you put your defense modules such as shield extenders. Considering we are out at null sec at risk of damage heavy rats and other players, the Procurer should be at the top of your choices out of the three already. It is possible to shield tank the rats whilst your drones destroy them and your strip miner continues to cycle meaning no interruption to your mining yield when rats arrive. Depending on the time of day this could save you half a run’s worth of time and several million isk. With every barge pilot in a Procurer fitted the same you can have another fleet member running logistics to haul the ore back to the station, meaning the Procurer’s can be mining 100% of the time when on site. From an ore yield point of view this would be better in Covetor’s or even Retriever’s, but the Procurer’s can stay on site and shield tank whilst the rats are taken care of by their drones. They would not have to jump in and out of the mining area wasting mining time therefore in the long run producing a sufficient and likely higher yield. Shield Tank Procurer * High Slot: Strip Miner I * Medium Slots: Medium Shield Extender II, Small Shield Extender II, Adaptive Invulnerability Field II, Survey Scanner II * Low Slots: Mining Laser Upgrade II Warp Core Stabilizer II * Rig Slots: Medium Core Defense Field Extender I x3 * Drone Bay: Acolyte II x5, Mining Drone II x5 This fitting costs 40,707,351 ISK (40.71m) and takes 39d 14h 10m 26s to learn the skills - 23d 17h 14m 50s of which is specifically for the drone skills, meaning if you start with 0 skill points you will be sat in this 56,674HP Procurer yielding roughly 2,350㎥ per 160s in only 15d 20h 55m 36s. Considering you start the game with ~500,000SP and can use the Prototype Cerebral Accelerator, you could train this in less than two weeks. See the skill plan here: http://www.eve-skillplan.net/p/10886 Jet Can Covetor * High Slots: Strip Miner I x3 * Medium Slots: Survey Scanner II * Low Slots: Mining Laser Upgrade II x2 * Rig Slots: Medium Core Defense Field Extender I x3 * Drone Bay: Mining Drone II x10 Organised mining fleets will most likely have an Orca or Rorqual which offer considerable mining boosts for the fleet. For maximum efficiency another ship in the fleet would be a hauler for transporting the mined Ore out of the location to allow the miners to stay on sight 100% of the time. With that much ISK’s worth of ships in the fleet they will have defence ships too. As the Covetor has the largest yield out of the three Barges it will be able to tear through Ore for maximum efficiency. It is very vulnerable against rats and enemy players, but as you have to jet can every other cycle you’ll be a fool not to be paying attention to the game. The Lazy Retriever * High Slots: Strip Miner I x2 * Medium Slot: Survey Scanner II * Low Slots: Mining Laser Upgrade II x3 * Rig Slots: Medium Core Defense Field Extender I x3 * Drone Bay: Mining Drone II x5 If you really must use the Retriever for it’s highest Ore capacity (27,500㎥ with Mining Barge V) you may as well take advantage of it having three low slots to place three Mining Laser Upgrade II’s on it. If you would rather have a Warp Core Stabiliser you can swap a laser upgrade out without any CPU/Power Grid issues. The high ore capacity encourages people to AFK - remember this ship can’t handle rats and that there is always a risk of neutrals. Do not AFK mine in null sec. You will lose your ship. Efficiency Having spoken about the fittings and benefits of the initial mining ships we now need to consider the efficiency of your mining sessions. You need to aim for the highest yield in the least amount of time and as safely as possible. To begin with start training your Mining and Astrogeology skills to level 5. Each level of each skill grants +5% to mining yield, providing a total of +50% at max level between the two of them. As well as this the Mining Barge skill grants specific boosts for each of the three mining barges. If you train this to level 5 not only will you benefit from boosts on the barges but also the exhumers when you start to train for those. At max level it will grant you a 10% reduction to Strip Miner and Ice Harvester duration on the Procurer and Retriever and 20% for the Covetor. The Mining Upgrades skill reduces the CPU requirements of mining upgrades by 5% each level, so it is also a useful skill to learn into. These skills will take a while to fully learn, so make sure you have other skills in your queue mixed in. I would suggest getting yourself into a barge before piling them all on top of each other, but you can see the required skills and skill plan here: http://www.eve-skillplan.net/p/11007 Follow this link to see up to date ore values: http://ore.cerlestes.de/#site:ore Whilst flying a Venture this is pretty straight forward. Choose a rock and mine it. Whilst flying a barge it becomes slightly more technical. I have already explained the strong and weak points of each barge so won’t cover them again, however I will detail effective ways to mine in certain situations. General Mining Safety Tips * Get within laser range and stop your ship (Ctrl+Space). Align to the Instadock or POS (A+Click) and stop your ship again. If you need to warp out quickly you’ll be aligned and all your ship will have to do is speed up to then warp - it cuts one of the three steps of warping out. * Forget about your drones. Seriously, they’re not worth it. If you need to warp out do not wait for them. It could mean the difference between 20k for new drones or 20m for a new ship. Chances are when you warp back to location they’ll still be there - just right click your capacitor and select “reconnect to lost drones”. * Keep an eye on Local. Always have Local Chat open in a separate box so you can see who’s in your system. If there is a Grey/Orange/Red, warp straight to the instadock and dock up, or straight to the POS and stay within the bubble. * Avoid rats unless you are in the Shield Tank Procurer. As soon as rats jump in, warp out and do not warp back in until they have been cleared! Depending on the strength of the rats a Shield Tank Procurer can continue to mine whilst its drones destroy them. Have you ever seen 50 drones killing rats? The more Shield Tank Procurer’s there are, the faster and easier it will be to kill the rats. * Avoid Mercoxit. You can only mine this with the tech 2 strip miners and if you do it has a chance to explode whilst mining it. If somebody is mining it stay at least 20km away from the ore otherwise an explosion could destroy your ship. If somebody asks you to move because they would like to mine some Mercoxit it is considered rude to refuse. Mercoxit is not very common, so it is easier for you to relocate than it is for them. * Mine alongside everyone else. Safety in numbers is a key part of staying alive whilst mining in null sec. Not only can your squad leader warp you out of danger if you are not quick enough to do so, but defensive players will only have to travel to one location to protect you if necessary. The areas to mine should be prioritised like this: Large Ore Anomaly > Medium Anomaly > Small Anomaly > Middle Belts. * Stay out of outside Asteroid Belts, they’re the first place neutrals will go to kill miners as they’re on the outside of the list. In RF-CN3 these are I-1 and VII-1. * Listen to what people are saying in Teamspeak. The quartermaster won’t be keen on giving you a new ship if you ignored the warnings of enemy players or rats. Plus, the killboards don’t look good if a bunch of Ventures get killed by NPC piglets… * Do not AFK. No matter how tempted you are to AFK whilst mining, don’t. It can get pretty boring if you have long cycles, so check the corp bulletins, make sure your skill queue is optimized, or browse the internet with your browser pinned to one side of the screen so you can keep an eye for rats and neuts. See the image for what I mean by this. Solo Mining Whilst I encourage you to always mine alongside other people, you may find at quieter times of the day they are doing other things so you have no choice but to mine solo. The most important thing to do here is pay attention for dangers. In this case the only dangers are rats and enemy players. If rats appear and you are unable to fight them in a PVE ship, just warp to a new belt/anomaly. If an enemy enters the system simply warp to the instadock and dock up, or to the POS and stay within the bubble. If you have a barge, use your Shield Tank Procurer and ensure you have Warp Core Stabilisers fitted in case someone tries to tackle you before your ship warps. If you are a confident miner you can use your Lazy Retriever. Your yield will be better than the Procurer’s and you will have less time between runs. If you are an over-confident miner you can use your Jet Can Miner. When your ore hold is almost full select all of the ore and right-click “Jettison”. It will appear in space in a Cargo Container which can be taken by any player. If a friendly player takes it I’d advise shooting them out of the sky - it’s not cool, don’t do it to people. On a serious note, the cargo containers will decay in roughly 90 minutes, so right click “name” each one you jettison and name it the EVE time you dropped it along with an identifying mark to know it’s yours.. Once an hour has passed or 42,000㎥ of ore is in space, dock up and get into your Miasmos. You only require Gallente Industrial Level 1 and Spaceship Command Level 3 to pilot this ship, but make sure it is fitted with shield modules and warp core stabilizers just in case of an emergency. Simply warp back to where you were mining, pick up all of the ore and dock back up to drop the ore off and start your run in the Covetor again. Mining in a fleet There isn’t a huge difference between solo mining and mining in a fleet other than the fact that is is not only safer, but you can get away with using riskier ships. The fleet can even have logistics working to boost your yield and/or transport ore for you. For example, a fleet of 10 pilots could consist of an Orca or Rorqual to provide insane mining boosts, 8 Covetors jet canning and a hauler to transport all of the ore. A fleet running like this would earn enough ISK in ore to split the takings evenly between all pilots with each pilot making more ISK than they would mining by themselves. Even if you are in a fleet but everyone is still doing their own thing they may have logistics boosts which will help you a lot towards optimizing your mining.